And Now, For Your Entertainment Today…

As much as I try to, I can’t avoid politics here as uh as I’d like to. It’s become endemic in our lives, hasn’t it? The the advent of cable news over the past 40 years or so (CNN premiered June 1, 1980), it doesn’t seem we are able to avoid what passes for news today. In fact, what we regularly receive is not news in the classical sense, but infotainment, you know, something with just enough of what might be referred to as news, wrapped up t be fun and engaging. At the end of the day, are we any better informed than we were? I don’t think so.In fact, we can look at hundreds of examples, daily, and see how those that present as news attempt to manipulate their audience into believing something that is clearly, on second (maybe third) look, is blatant propaganda, pressing forward an ideology, whether it be political or cultural, instead of just informing.

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When Opinion Meets Fact

 

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It happens to everyone. Sometimes we’re just wrong. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve held a certain opinion or belief, when presented with evidence that refutes what we have always considered as fact, we should accept it, humbly, and move on. That’s the way science works. Over years, even decades, new information is developed that gives us a different perspective on what had been considered settled in the past. It’s a good thing, in that we expand and improve our knowledge in some area of science. The same should be applied to our knowedge in other subhects as well. We shouldn’t be cowed by popular opinion, or that which appears to be politically correct views.

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Moving Beyond the Crazies

 

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As a conservative, I follow and am followed by, other conservatives on social media, specifically Twitter. I do also follow some liberals and progressives, but the overwhelming majority I think (I’ve never actually counted) are conservative. I try not to follow those I consider the crazies from either side but sometimes until I see a few tweets from someone, I have no idea of their specific political opinions. It’s wide ranging, again on both sides of the spectrum from the reasonable (who I prefer) to the downright conspiracy theorists. there seem to be a lot more lately of the later than the former.

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